Jaguar

We just learned about the Tigers.

Another type of wild cat is the Jaguar.

This is the third biggest kind of cat after the lion and tiger.
It can grow to be about 350 pounds, and six feet long, with a 2 foot tail.

They have spots all over their body, with different sizes and shapes.
On their head, feet and belly, their spots are mostly just all black.
Their bodies have things called rosettes, which sort of like rose shaped black marks that are darker brown in the middle, and sometimes have a dot in the middle.
Other than their spots they have brown heads, backs and legs, and their belly area has white fur.

Jaguars live in Central and South America, but don't usually come as far north as the United States.

Just like a tiger, jaguars usually live by themselves.
Baby jaguars will live with only their mother for about 2 years and then they go live by themselves.
They can live to be around 12 years in the wild, and if they are taken care of in a zoo they can live over 20 years.

Jaguars are strong swimmers, and can even hunt things like Caimans that live in the water and are like an alligator.




(from: wikipedia - jaguar)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Upside Down Jellyfish

Peripheral Vision

We just learned about the Field of View.

Another part of the eye is Peripheral Vision.

When you are looking straight ahead at something, you can still see things a little bit that are on the left and right sides of your head.

The word "peripheral" means on the outside or on the edge of something.
So peripheral vision is looking at things that are on the outside edge of what you are seeing.


(from: wikipedia - peripheral vision)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Taste Buds

Ross Sea

We just learned about the Weddel Sea.

Another part of Antarctica is the Ross Sea.

This sea is on the other side of Antarctica from the Weddel sea, and it is about 246,000 square miles.
Because it is further away from other land, many scientists see this place as the last place on earth that has not been hurt by pollution.

There are many scientists who go to the Ross sea to try and study the animals and ice there, without making any changes to the Ross Sea just so we can study what the earth was like a long time ago.

A lot of animals live in this area too, like penguins, whales and seals.
Because this place has not really been touched by humans, there are a lot of people trying to keep it safe and make sure it does not get polluted or ruined.


(from: wikipedia - ross sea)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Kilkenny Castle

Vikings and Christians

We just learned about the King Charlemagne.

Another part of early Christianity is Vikings and Christians and how they lived together.

Sometimes vikings would go do a raid, and attack another group of people.
They would steal food and things, but they would also sometimes steal people.

The people they brought back were either made to be slaves or taken as wives for the vikings.
A lot of the people they took were Christian, so just by doing these raids more and more vikings would get to live around Christians.

Just by being with Christians and living with them, many vikings became Christian, and that helped Christianity grow in countries like Denmark, Sweden and Norway.


(from: wikipedia - vikings)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Muratorian Fragment

Forever Free - Edmonia Lewis

We just learned about the The Woman of Samaria (Rebecca at the Well) - William Henry Rinehart.

Another famous American sculpture is Forever Free by Edmonia Lewis in 1867.

Edmonia was born in New York in 1844, while there was still slavery in America.
Her father was part African and Haitian, and her mother was part African and Native American.

When she grew up in America it was very difficult for her because life was not fair for women, African Americans or Native Americans.
She was not allowed to go to school or get jobs that men or white people were allowed to have.
When she was nine years old, her parents died so she went to Niagara Falls to live for a while with her two aunts that were Native American, and she changed her name to "Wildfire".

When she was 15 she was sent to a school in Ohio where they allowed women and African American people. She was still not treated very nice and at one point some people tried to put her in jail saying that she poisoned some other students. They did not even let her graduate school.

In 1864 when she was 20 years old she moved to Boston and started making sculptures.
The Civil War was going on, so she started making sculptures of Civil War heroes like Robert Gould Shaw.
Later on she saved up enough money to move to Rome where she could work with other famous sculptors.

Her statue called "Forever Free" was made in 1867, just after the Civil War was over.
It shows a man standing up who was in chains but is now free.
A woman is kneeling next to him praying, and she is dressed in nice clothes.
She had the woman in clothes because a lot of sculptures of women at the time had women not wearing much, and she thought that made people only think about what women looked like.

Her sculptures became so famous that President Ulysses S. Grant asked for her to come and make a sculpture of him.


(from: wikipedia - edmonia lewis)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Ellora - Hindu Caves

Russian - I am happy

Last time we learned that the Russian words for horse, sheep and duck are лошадь (loshad'), овца (ovsta), and утка (utka).

Let's learn how to say I am happy in Russian!

We can break it up into a few words.

In Russian you don't say "I am happy", you really just say "I happy".

I - Я (ya) - sounds like yah 文A

happy - счастлив (schastliv) - sounds like shah-ss-t-lih-v 文A

Together Я счастлив (ya shastliv) sounds like yah shah-ss-t-lih-v



(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Norwegian: jeg er glad

Greek: Είμαι (Eímai) χαρούμενος (charoúmenos)

ASL: I am happy

Italian: Sono felice

German: Ich bin glücklich

Spanish: Estoy feliz

French: Je suis heureux

Valve Types

We just learned about the Poppet Valve, and we learned about the Ball Valve before that.

There are lots of different Valve Types out there that are made for different reasons.

A Globe Valve has a body that is shaped sort of like a globe, and has a disc that goes up and down to plug the hole and stop the flow of liquid or gas.

(from: wikipedia - globe valve)

A Butterfly Valve has a circle shaped disc in the middle that spins to open or close.


(from: wikipedia - butterfly valve)

A Gate Valve has a gate that goes up and down to open or close the hole.


(from: wikipedia - gate valve)

A Check Valve is a type of valve that stays closed unless the liquid or gas pushes hard enough to open it, and then it will close again using something like a spring.


(from: wikipedia - check valve)

A Control Valve is a valve that is controlled by a computer to tell it to open a little or a lot, so that it can control the amount of liquid or gas that is coming through.


(from: wikipedia - control valve)

Valves can have have a lot more than just two holes or ports also.
Many valves have three or four ports, and some have even more!


(from: wikipedia - four way valve)

There are a lot more types of valves out there. Pretty much any way you can think of to open or close a pipe, someone has made a valve for it.

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: V-2 Rocket

Tigers

We just learned about Lions.

Another big cat is the Tiger.

The tiger is the largest of the wild cats in the group of animals called "Felidae".

Tigers mostly live by themselves, except for the mothers when they are raising tiger cubs for about 2 years.

There are a lot of different types of tigers from different places.
Some have darker or longer fur, some are a little bigger, and some have stripes that look a little different.
Just like lions, there are also white tigers!
All the different tigers are in a group called "Panthera".

Tigers have stripes so that they can hide in the tall grass when they are hunting for other animals.
They have yellow irises in their eyes, and circle shaped pupils.

Boy tigers can grow to be 12 feet long, and weigh 675 pounds! Girl tigers are smaller, only growing to 9 feet and 360 pounds.
Their tails can be 2 to 4 feet long!

Tigers used to live all the way from the country of Turkey in the west to Japan in the east.
Now it mostly only lives in parts of India and China and a few other countries.
Tigers usually live in forest areas where there is water and other animals for them to hunt.

Even though we think about cats not liking water, tigers have no problem swimming, and can swim 18 miles in one day!






(from: wikipedia - tiger)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Crown Jellyfish

Field of View

We just learned about the Central Retinal Vein.

Another part of the eyes is the Field of View.

When we are looking forward with our eyes, we see the things in front of us, but not behind us.
We also can only see part of what is up, down, left or right without moving our head to see it all.

Some of this is because parts of our head that get in the way like cheekbones or eyebrows.
Part of it is because our eyeballs are pointed forward.
Some animals like a rabbit or a deer have eyes on the sides of their heads, so they can see almost all the way in front and in back of their bodies.

The whole space of things that you can see with your eyes without moving them is called your Field of View, or FoV.



(from: wikipedia - peripheral vision)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Lingual Papillae

Weddel Sea

We just learned about the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.

Another part of Antarctica is the Weddel Sea.

This is the water just to the East of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Some scientists believe this to be the clearest sea water in the whole world, and people have been able to see things down in the water over 250 feet deep.

The sea is about 1,200 miles across, and some sailors have said that it was the most dangerous sea on earth.
As people have taken their boats into this sea, sometimes the ice will flash freeze, and then melt again, and sometimes the ice will crush or tip over ships.

There are many animals who live in this sea, like the Weddell seal, killer whales, humpback whales, minke whales, leopard seals and crabeater seals.

There are also some penguins that live on the land in this area and swim in the sea.



(from: wikipedia - weddel sea)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Conwy Castle

King Charlemagne

We just learned about the Icons.

Another part of early Christianity is the rule of King Charlemagne, also known as Charles I or Charles the Great.

Around 770 AD a person named Charlemagne was the king over a lot of parts of Europe, like France, Germany and Italy.

There were a lot of people in those times fighting over who should be king or emperor, so Pope Leo III who was the head of the church in Rome told everyone to follow Charlemagne and that he should be the ruler over everyone else.

Charles loved reading, writing and music, so he helped make schools for people to learn and read the books of the Bible.
He also sent people to Rome to learn how to sing and they came back to the schools to teach people how to sing the Psalms of the Bible.

A lot of the writings of the Bible were in Latin or Greek, so Charles told people to make copies of them in other languages.
This made it so that everyone could read the Bible and learn about God and Jesus themselves.


(from: wikipedia - charlemagne)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Tetramorph